Shipping crate



April 1, 1952 Filed June 7, 1949 B. c. cOlT, JR

SHIPPING CRATE 2 SHEETSSHEET l (M l t April 1, 1952 B, O JR 2,590,941

SHIPPING CRATE Filed June 7; 1949 2 SHEETS-SHEET 2 Wax/aw a Q? J .6.

INVENTOR. BURTON C.COI7,J.

BY W

'fATToRNEY.

Patented Apr. 1, 1952 SHIPPING CRATE Burton C. Coit, Jr., Washington,Pa., assignor to Tri-State Engineering Company, Washington, Pa., acorporation of Maryland Application June '1, 1949, Serial No. 97,511

3 Claims.

. 1 My invention relates to crates or boxes of the foldable orcollapsible type, and more particularly to a latching arrangementtherefor for releasably maintaining the side walls and end walls of thecrate in assembled position to receive goods for storage or shipment.The invention is particularly applicable to structures of the typesshown in my applications Serial No. 740,103, filed April 8, 1947 (nowabandoned), and Serial No. 85,926, filed April 6, 1949, (now Patent No.2,576,671) which applications show combined pallet and crate structureswherein the side walls are hingedly connected to the pallet deck andeach end wall is hingedly connected at one of its vertical edges to oneof the side walls and the side walls then foldable upon the deck, whenthe crates are not in use, for compact storage and return shipment ofthe empty crates. While my invention is particularly useful in combinedpallet and crate structures, it is also useful in structures wherein thecrate has simply a bottom instead of the crate walls being placed upon apallet deck.

My invention has for its object the provision of an improved form oflatching device for releasably connecting the free vertical edges of theend walls of a crate to the adjacent free edges of the side walls, whenthe four Walls of the crate are in upright position, the latching devicebeing so arranged that it will not protrude perpendicularly from theplanes of the crate Walls nor become accidently disengaged at anyposition to which the crate may be turned during the handling thereof.

Figure 1 is a side view of a crate that embodies my invention; Fig. 2 isan end view thereof; Fig. 3 is a plan view thereof, on a reduced scaleand showing more particularly a plan view of the pallet deck; Fig. 4 isan end view, on a reduced scale, showing the manner in which the sideand end walls of the crate can be folded upon the pallet deck; Fig. 5 isan enlarged view showing the safety latch in operative position; Fig. 6shows the latch in disengaged position; Fig. 7 is a plan view of thelatch bar, and Fig. 8 is a side view thereof.

The crate walls, together with the improved latching arrangement orsafety latch, may be provided with a crate bottom of any suitable formbut is here shown as used with a pallet of the type employed fortransporting and stacking merchandise, by the use of trucks of thelifting fork type.

The pallet comprises a deck portion formed of transversely-extendingrods l0 welded to longitudinaIly-extending rods il. Leg members 12 ofsheet metal are welded at their upper ends to the deck wires l0 and I I,although these legs may be of rod-like form if desired. Floor bars 13are welded to the lower ends of the leg i2 and have their ends upturnedat It and welded to the deck. Here the floor bars are shown in the formof sheet metal strips but could be of rod-like form if desired. Thefloor bars 13 are connected by cross bars ii that are welded thereto.The floor bars are bent or offset upwardly at It, to facilitate stackingof the pallets and their containers. The offset portions engaging theupper edges of. a crate upon which the pallet is stacked, to makeiteasier to center or align the stacked crates and pallets and alsoreducing danger of shifting of the stacked crates.

The crate has side walls each formed of vertical rods ll welded tohorizontal rods 18, and theend walls are respectively formed of verticalrods;

l9 welded to horizontally-extending rods 20.

The side walls 11-48 are hingedly connected. to the pallet deck byspiral wires 2| that respectively embrace the lowermost rod I8 of theside walls and the adjacent marginal rod ll of the deck. At each of twodiagonally-opposite corners of the crate, the end walls are hingedlyconnected to the side walls by spiral wires 23 that embrace the adjacentvertical rods I1 and IQ of the side and end walls respectively.

In order to maintain the crate walls in upright position to receivelading and to hold them against lateral deflection under the containedlading, the end walls have hooks 24 Welded thereto in position to extendthrough the deck as shown in Fig. 2 to prevent spreading of the loweredge of the wall relative to the deck. Also, these walls have hooks 25welded to the wires I9 in position to project through the mesh openingsof the adjacent side wall and engage rods l8.

In order to prevent accidental disengagement of the hooks 24 and 25, Iprovide the safety latch arrangement heretofore referred to. Thisarrangement comprises keepers 26 of looped or U- shaped form welded tothe end walls in position to project through openings in the side walls,at diagonally-opposite corners of the crate. A latch bar 21 is providedfor engagement with each of the loops or keepers 26, the major portionof the bar being bent to elongated-loop form as shown more clearly inFig. 7. The bent-back or looped end of the bar is welded at 28 to thebody portion of the bar, and the bar has a hook 29 formed thereon. Thebar loop loosely embraces the adjacent vertical rods ll of the sidewalls and is therefore readily movable from its release position of Fig.6 to its operative or engaged position of Figs. 1, 2 and 5. The latchbar will, of course, maintain latching engagement with the keeper loops25 when the crates are being handled in either upright or tiltedpositions, and, more importantly, will not be accidentally disengagedeven though the crate is turned up-side down, for the reason that theinner end of the bar 27 will fall under the weight of gravity probablyeven more readily than the hook end of the bar. This results from thefact that the latch bar is freely slidable on the rod i1 instead ofbeing pivotally mounted on a fixed axis at its inner end as is commonwith latch bars.

In order to fold the crate for storage or return shipment in an emptycondition, the latch bars 21 will be disengaged as will also the hooks2t and 25. Thereupon, the end walls can be folded against the sidewalls, and the side walls folded upon the deck, thus making forcompactness as shown schematically in Fig. 4. Because the bars l! aredisposed behind or at the inward sides of the bars l8 and the flattenedloop of the latch bar 21 extends around the bars ll, the outer side ofthe latch bar does not project beyond the outer plane of the bars [8 andtherefore is not likely to be caught on any obstruction. Also, since theloop of the bar engages two of the rods H, the bar cannot swingoutwardly from the face of the crate wall.

A lid or cover will be provided for the,crate, when desired, as forexample the form of cover shown in my said application Ser. No. 85,926,now Patent No. 2,576,671, dated November 27, 1951.

I claim as my invention:

1. A crate having vertical walls whose lower edges are adapted forconnection to a bottom wall, means for releasably connecting thevertical walls together at corners of the crate, comprisingvertically-extending guide devices on one vertical wall, a latch barhaving an elongated loop surrounding said guide devices and havinglimited movements thereon in vertical and horizontal directions, andextending in a generally horizontal direction, to a point adjacent to avertical edge of the wall, a hook on the outer end of the bar, in aplane perpendicular to the loop .and a keeper on the adjacent edge ofanother wall, engageable by the said hook, the inner end of the barbeing shiftable vertically on the said guide device when the hook isengaged with the keeper.

2. A crate having a bottom wall and vertical walls two of whose loweredges are connected to the bottom wall, and means for releasably connecting the vertical walls together at corners of the crate, comprisin adownturned hook fixedly mounted on a vertical wall and engageable with aretaining member on the adjacent vertical wall, at one corner of thecrate, a latch bar loosely supported by the last-named vertical wall,for limited movements vertically and horizontally, and extending in agenerally horizontal direction to a point adjacent a vertical edge ofthe Wall, a hook on the outer end of the bar, and a keeper on theadjacent vertical edge of the first-named wall, at said corner, near theupper end thereof and engageable by the said hook, the secondnamedvertical wall at the corner having a hole through which the keeperextends for connection to the hook, a wall of the hole preventingrelative upward movement of the vertical wall and thereby maintainingthe first-named vertical wall against disengagement from said member.

3. A crate having vertical side and end walls each formed of verticaland horizontal rods that are secured together where they cross oneanother, a bottom wall 'to which opposite side walls are hingedlyconnected, the end walls each being hingedly connected to a side wall,downturned hooks fixedl carried by the free vertical edges of the endwalls and engageable with horizontal rods of the side walls, keeperloops carried by free vertical edges of the end walls, near their upperends and movable into spaces between horizontal and vertical rods of theadjacent side wall, and latch bars loosely embracing vertical rods onthe side walls, and having downturned hooks engageable with the keeper.

BURTON C. COIT, JR.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file ofthis patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 645,489 Pease Mar. 13, 1900797,871 Smith Aug. 22, 1905 957,068 La Bauve May 3, 1910 1,240,757Mortland et al. Sept. 18, 1917 1,673,736 Davis June 12, 1928 1,834,541Johnson Dec. 1, 1931 1,834,951 Jarvis Dec. 8, 1931 1,905,137 BlombergApr. 25, 1933 2,295,360 Schneider Sept. 8, 1942

